Hi folks, I just started a new account today to post about this issue so hopefully I am posting in the right place.
I have noticed that when playing music back on the Pixel, Google Play Music (GPM) keeps the device fully awake and away from deep sleep regardless of what settings are selected. I previously owned a Nexus 5 and the DSP audio tunneling feature allowed for audio processing to be done through the phone's DSP, allowing the device to reach a deep sleep state through most of the audio playback. This greatly enhanced battery life and I believe was advertised as a feature of the Snapdragon 800 chipset in that device.
I know that when making voice calls with the pixel, the battery usage and associated wakelocks look very similar to my Nexus 5. It seems to do this audio processing with the DSP just fine, and the phone enters deep sleep intermittently despite the voice call, so long as the screen remains black. I also know that the Pixel has a more creative use of the DSP in the camera software, and it is part of the reason we get such beautiful photos with such small shutter lag.
However, I have found absolutely nothing online or otherwise related to the Pixel's distinct lack of DSP usage during audio playback. It would stand to reason that this device, using a chipset based on the Snapdragon 821, and including a DSP even more advanced than that of my Nexus 5, should also be taking advantage of this feature. Unless there are any drawbacks that I am aware of, it would only serve to improve the battery life even more.
If anyone knows something that I do not about this, or has any inclination to try it out and see if it works on your device, I'd love to know more! It could be a bug that nobody noticed, or they may have removed the ability for the device to do this for some reason. Or it could be a GPM related thing, I really don't know if this feature was enabled for other devices. I am using a play store purchased Pixel 32gb running stock 7.1.2. For the record, it is less of an issue on this phone than it would have been on the Nexus 5, because I get great battery life streaming music or otherwise.
The feature only ever worked without bluetooth, by the way, as streaming audio over bluetooth adds extra processing that requires the device to be kept awake as far as I know. Only playback through the phone's internal speaker or through the audio jack with EQ disabled allowed the feature to work for me on my Nexus 5.
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Hey all,
I've just recently received my OPO and it seems to me that things like listening to pocket casts/google play music are burning through my battery at a much faster rate than on my n5. I know one of the selling points of the n5 was the the use of the secondary low-power processor for audio tunneling, and I believed this functionality was included in the snapdragon 801- can anyone confirm that this functionality is enabled?
Edit- earlier blog posts regarding this here ; anything I might have done to disabled this or any reason cached music/podcasts would not take advantage of this?
Yes, the actual playback of media uses very little battery, it's the apps that are sucking juice.
My suggestion:
Go to Settings>Privacy>Privacy Guard>Advanced and set "Wake Up" and "Keep Awake" to "Disabled" on all your audio apps.
One catch, you'll need to have the audio app on screen before you turn the screen off, or playback will pause a couple minutes after the screen turns off.
I've found this saves a ton of battery.
Hi - wanted to share my experience with the s7, particularly the sound (media) performance.
Got the S7 (duos) last week, rooted, and pretty much happy with the snappy device (and I like the camera much).
What I've noticed so far (and not happy with these) are: bluetooth connection issues (too many related posts here and everywhere else so I won't add my rant) and the sound settings not staying put.
Here's my sound settings experience -
1. If I set up (Settings/Sounds and Vibration/Sound Quality and effects) and tweak the settings to my liking - equalizer custom, surround on, concert hall on, and adapt sound personalized, the resulting output to my bluetooth and wired speakers are acceptable (lower volume than I prefer but I can manage)
2. That sound set up will mysteriously disappear although the settings do not change (i.e. the switches and equalizer settings are as I've set them) and the only way I get them back is to toggle the settings.
Very odd. I've never experienced this before (I've had a GS2, GS4, a note 8) and a Sony Z5 (selling).
Has anyone else experienced this and what was your fix?
wujae said:
Hi - wanted to share my experience with the s7, particularly the sound (media) performance.
Got the S7 (duos) last week, rooted, and pretty much happy with the snappy device (and I like the camera much).
What I've noticed so far (and not happy with these) are: bluetooth connection issues (too many related posts here and everywhere else so I won't add my rant) and the sound settings not staying put.
Here's my sound settings experience -
1. If I set up (Settings/Sounds and Vibration/Sound Quality and effects) and tweak the settings to my liking - equalizer custom, surround on, concert hall on, and adapt sound personalized, the resulting output to my bluetooth and wired speakers are acceptable (lower volume than I prefer but I can manage)
2. That sound set up will mysteriously disappear although the settings do not change (i.e. the switches and equalizer settings are as I've set them) and the only way I get them back is to toggle the settings.
Very odd. I've never experienced this before (I've had a GS2, GS4, a note 8) and a Sony Z5 (selling).
Has anyone else experienced this and what was your fix?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not experience the same but there is another thing that is bothering me.
Sometimes Notification and System Volume gets changed with the same volume level whenever I change the Ringtone Volume level by pressing the volume buttons. it's like all these are stuck together.
I found that this issue is due to rooting the device. Some settings gets weird after rooting.
If i don't root, the phone works fine. No issues.
And if I increase the volume, we get a popup like "Listening at a high volume for a long time may damage your hearing". Upto this point the Sound will be minimum. If i increase just a bit more from that level, suddenly the Sound increases massively.
I have an issue with bluetooth as well. Not sure if it's related but I bluetooth Pandora through my truck, and I have my media volume turned all the way up so that I can just control it through the player installed in my vehicle. If I'm listening to music when I turn off my truck but leave Pandora open on my phone, paused of course, then start up the truck again the volume level is low as if it turns itself down to the "safe hearing level" setting, but when I go to raise the volume it tells me it's all the way up. This won't go away until Pandora moves on to the next song. It's kind of annoying because I don't want to blast my speakers when the song changes but I haven't found a solution. Maybe these are related because this only happens with bluetooth for me.
I think I may have had the problems before I rooted.
Anyone not rooted having similar issues on the sound settings changing?
(please, not don't post bluetooth issues here. There are many threads about that already)
So, with the new Poweramp Beta, there's an option to fully take advantage of the hi-fi DAC on our phone, called "Hi-Res Output". However, by enabling it, it turns off Viper4Atmos (V4A + Dolby Atmos). Is there any fix to this? I really want both at the same time...
Part of me says you don't but I won't tell you why without leaving because it's not my concern.
Hi there,
Google, please, would it be possible to solve Android audio latency problem in new Pixels by including a special "Audio mode" as a new app standard in future android versions? e.g. similar what Samsung has for battery saving so that everything switches off, the phone is totally unusable but saves battery. Audio mode would be something similar. Every service not necessary for the task would shut down, just the kernel and drivers would work, scheduler and CPU would be dedicated to single audio app that would only interact with few necessary components (Audio DAC, WIFI, USB..). This mode could also be enabled through restart I don't mind - I think musicians would appreciate it in the end knowing the phone is not just the "phone" for a while but a piece of hardware dedicated to audio. I'm curious how low the latency could go in this special case. 4ms max would be great. I would be happy if you comment this or forward it somehow to Google engineers if you know some I think it is a good idea and it could potentially be a significant advantage over iPhones...
I run my phone on the latest stock Android update and noticed something interesting with Spotify today. I had my volume turned all the way off but my speakers were still outputting music very quietly.
Thought about it some and realized that I had adjusted the equalizer settings in Spotify. When I turned the settings back to normal the issue went away.
Not sure if this actually matters to anyone, just thought it was an interesting bug. Seems weird to me that Android must leave the speakers always on and never actually shuts them off just silences them.
I guess it makes more sense to reduce the voltage of the speakers to 0 V, rather than using a relay. Movable parts are - usually - the first thing to break. Imagine avoid muting your phone just so it can live longer.
Also, a switch uses more space than just a connection and devs are doing everything to reduce size.